A Gothic Gamebook - Oddities & Rarities 2025
A Gothic Gamebook
Beware and warning! This book is different from other books. You and you alone are in charge of what happens in this story!
The 21st century is known for its interactive art, where the boundaries between audience and performers are blurred thanks to the use of technology. However, such openness in a work of art was also part of experimental projects in the previous century. For example, so-called gamebooks were designed as interactive stories in which the reader could decide the fate of the characters by choosing narrative paths at the end of each chapter.
In A Gothic Gamebook, the audience will write the story of a young couple in love according to the tropes of early 19th-century Gothic literature. For each possible scene, the musicians prepare several songs from the German Romantic song repertoire. The music itself is full of references to magic, fantastic creatures, ghosts and horror.
The musicians are collaboratively building a small corpus of tropes from Gothic literature and lieder from the German Romantic musical tradition.
The project is still in development, and a first performance will be included in the Oddities & Rarities 2025 - Real and Unreal at Orpheus Institute on Sunday 30 November.
Concert design (2025)
Rehearsals
Final Repertoire
Storyline
The name X and Y are inspired by a short story from Gli amori difficili by Italo Calvino.
Introduction
Two lovers, X and Y, are separated from each other. The greedy tutors of X have decided to give them to an old, rich bachelor without their consent.
Right before their separation, the two plan to meet in a desolate castle and start a new life together. In order to do that, X has to flee from their prison and Y has to travel through the dark forest by night without being followed.
X arrives at night, close to what once was a living community around the castle's estate. Rain is falling from the sky, making the old graveyard looks ever more sombre.
Y is wandering through the dark forest, trying to find their way to the ruined castle in time.
Act I
Both characters encounter a series of challenges, both natural and supernatural, during the long night.
At the end, tired and proved by many sleepless hours, they embrace the realm of dreams.
Act II
X and Y wake up and encounter The Witch and The Hermit, the first representing a villainous character, while the latter a mentoring figure.
The story reaches a climax, proving the dedication of the couple to their extremes.
Act III
Resolution of the story, leading to both a happy ending or a tragic finale.
Network
A Gothic Gamebook - Story Paths 2025 (link not functioning. See static image of the network here).
A Gothic Gamebook 2025 - Scenes & Music.base interactive Obsidian Base.
List of Scenes
List of Songs
- Auf dem Kirchhofe
- Du bist mir lieb
- Erlkönig D328
- Liebst du um schönheit GMW 43
- Gothic Gamebook - template
- Wehmut Op. 39 no. 9
- Der Feind Op. 145
- Hexenlied Op. 8 n.8
- Zwielicht Op. 39 n.10
- Mondnacht Op. 39 no. 5
- Die Mainacht Op. 43 n.2
- Wir wandelten Op.96 n. 2
- In der Fremde Op. 39 n. 1
- Walpurgisnacht Op. 2
- Walpurgisnacht Op. 75
- Auf einer Burg Op. 39 n. 7
- Feldeinsamkeit Op. 86 n. 2
- In dunkler Nacht Op. 60 no. 1
- Frühlingsnacht Op. 39 no. 12
- Unbewegte laue Luft Op. 57 n.8
- Stürmisch Wandern, Op. 18 n.°6
- Wie rafft ich mich auf Op. 32 n.1
- Die alten, bösen Lieder Op. 48 no. 16
- Ich stand in dunklen Traümen Op. 13 n.1
- Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart Op.135 n.5
- Dunkel wie dunkel in Wald und in Feld Op. 43 n.1
- Bedeckt mich mit Blumen IHW 32 n. 36
- Die Geister am Mummelsee IHW 22 n. 47
- Wie viele Zeit verlor Ich IHW 15 n. 37
- Sehnsucht D.123
- Hochzeitslied D. 463
- Die junge Nonne D.828
- Gretchen am Spinnrade D.118
- Totengräbers Heimweh D. 842
- Der Wanderer an den Mond D. 870
- Der Tod und das Mädchen D.531
- Der Jüngling und der Tod D. 545
- Die Geister haben's vernommen
Citations
The fantastic is the explaination of the obscure zone where the most unrestrained passions of desire and the terrors of guilt mix together.
The fantastic or supernatural tale is one of the most typical products of 19th-century fiction, and one of the most significant genres for us nowadays, in that it tells us so much about what goes on inside the individual and about our collective symbols.
To our sensibilities today, the fantastic element, that lies at the centre of their plots always seemed charged with meaning, signifying the emergence of the unconscious, the repressed, the forgotten,
whatever has been suppressed by our rational consciousness.
It is the phantom of our own self whose intimate relationship with, and whose powerful influence upon our soul, either plunges us into hell or elevates us to heaven
The rustic magic has an incredible charm. It lies, you might say, on the ambiguous border between poetry and reality. People communicate with the infernal powers without entirely abandoning God. The most ordinary objects become sacred and magic: an ear of wheat or a willow brach can create hopes and fears.
All the grotesque and infernal forms that the fantasy of the painter or poet could ever imagine were crowding in...
From the night onward my nature was in some way doubled; there were within me two men, neither of whom knew the other. Sometimes I thought I was a priest who dreamed every night that he was a nobleman, sometimes I was a nobleman who dreamed that he was a priest.
More than anything I loved to read, to take walks alone, and to dream, to dream! It is difficult to say exactly what I dreamed of: sometimes, it's true, I seemed to see myself standing in front of a half-closed door behind which unknown mysteries were hidden. I would stand, and wait, and fall into a trance and keep imagining what was ahead...
Inspirations from Fantastic Literature
Edited by Roger Caillois
To be continued...
Translated by Sabrina Bottari
To be continued...
Edited by Jorge Luis Borges
To be continued...
Analysis of fantastic literature by Tzvetan Todorov
"Tutto questo mi ha l'aria di un sogno" mi dissi "ma che altro è la vita umana? I miei sogni sono soltanto più straordinari di altri; ecco tutto. [...] Dov'è il possibile? E dove l'impossibile?"
Roles
- Idea of a narrator (Game Master), a fictional character of an invented German writer trying to find inspiration to create a new gothic novel story.
Rules
- Scenes are heterogeneous in length, between 1 and 3 songs.
- Scenes are divided in 3 Acts, normally lasting 25 minutes each.
Changing spotlight
- Public can always choose to divert the spotlight to the inactive character. If the scene has already been played, then the GM has free choice to place the new character into a new scene, adjacent to the previous one.